Obama Visits Texas to Pitch Economic Agenda

President Barack Obama steps off Marine One upon arrival to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., Thursday, May 9, 2013. Obama is traveling to Austin, Texas. ( AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Updated with more information on the innovation institutes.

By Colleen McCain Nelson and James R. Hagerty

President Barack Obama on Thursday is announcing two executive actions aimed at jump-starting his economic agenda as he works to build support for his ideas to strengthen the middle class.

The president is traveling to Austin, Texas, to kick off what the White House has dubbed the “Middle-Class Jobs and Opportunity Tour,” with stops that will spotlight economic success stories. The message will be that Washington is standing in the way of economic growth, administration officials have said. The goal is to pressure Congress to pass proposals that the president laid out on his State of the Union address, among them new spending for infrastructure and early childhood education, as well as a raise in the minimum wage.

In Austin, Mr. Obama is laying out two new executive actions that the White House said would strengthen the economy.

In the first action, the president plans to launch a competition to create three manufacturing innovation institutes. He will announce a federal commitment of $200 million for the partnerships to develop new manufacturing technologies while continuing to urge Congress to invest $1 billion and establish a network of 15 innovation institutes.

The White House said it would provide a total of $200 million to launch the institutes, to be matched by state and local governments and other sources, perhaps including private companies. No sites have been selected. Coalitions of educational and business groups around the country are being asked to submit bids to host the three separate research facilities.

One of the institutes will focus on design and manufacturing equipment digitally linked with suppliers. The second will do research on lightweight metals that could be used in such products as wind turbines, medical devices and combat vehicles. The third will seek to develop smaller and more efficient electronic devices for electric vehicles, industrial motors and other equipment.

Mr. Obama is also issuing an executive order that will make data generated by the government easily accessible to entrepreneurs, researchers and others. The order will call for government data to be made “freely available in open, machine-readable formats while appropriately safeguarding privacy, confidentiality and security,” according to the White House.

The president is making a series of stops Thursday in Austin. He’ll visit a high school that is teaching students skills they can use in tech jobs and will meet with technology entrepreneurs. He’s scheduled to speak at Applied Materials, a high-tech company that makes chip manufacturing equipment.

Austin is the first destination on a tour that will take Mr. Obama to communities that the White House says are models for economic growth. While immigration and gun control have overshadowed other issues in recent months, the administration now is looking to revive the president’s economic proposals, which so far have drawn little support from Republicans in Congress.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said on the Senate floor Thursday morning that Mr. Obama might take some lessons from the Texas economy.

“One study showed that Texas, with less than 10% of the population, accounted for almost one-third of private-sector jobs created in high-paying sectors in recent years,” he said. “And if the president is interested in duplicating that success at a federal level, he might take note of the fact that policymakers in Austin have taken a very different approach from Washington when it comes to how they tax and spend. Basically, they do less of it – with no income tax, for instance, and a low ratio of spending per capita. And they don’t ram through laws like Obamacare.”

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